“You bloody fool, Thomas,” swore the old man. “Harbouring a murderer, kidnapping one of Sir William Brereton’s men. If you’re not careful, you and your addle-brained schemes will have us sequestered for everything we own – and as for Hunckes, when he arrives you will send him back to Shrewsbury forthwith.”
Thomas Cotton muttered something incomprehensible under his breath, which I took to be reluctant acquiescence.
“You are lucky Clowes had the good sense to come and find me, Cheswis,” said Wilbraham. “You should have called for me in the first place.”
Alexander said nothing, but his face carried an ‘I told you so’ expression, and I knew that this would not be the last time that this subject would be discussed.
“You are in the right of it,” I said, “and I cannot be more thankful for your prompt response.”
“All we need to do now is find Abraham Gorste,” said George Cotton. “Has anyone seen him?”
“Vanished,” said Thomas Cotton. “His room is empty, and he has not been seen since this afternoon. He will be long gone by now.”
“Then I will ask for Frayne to arrange for a rider to be sent out to Whitchurch so that hue and cry can be raised. He will not get far. In the meantime, you are all invited to stay here tonight. It’s the least I can do, and, Mr Cheswis, we will ready your mare so you can ride her home tomorrow. As for your cart, carthorse, and cheese, you can be sure that suitable recompense will be made, on my son’s account, of course.” The old man gave his son a sharp glance, which Thomas Cotton met with a sullen glare.
I murmured my thanks to George Cotton for his prompt and gentlemanly response to his son’s actions, but in truth, compensation was the furthest thing from my mind at that particular moment.
“I will have one of my servants prepare rooms for you,” continued the elder Cotton, “and in the meantime you are invited to join us in the library. I believe supper will be served shortly.”
Alexander and Wade’s eyes lit up at the prospect of enjoying some of Cotton’s hospitality, but I had other ideas.
“I thank you for your offer, Mr Cotton,” I said, “and I will be with you as soon as I can, but there is something I need to do first.” With that, I pushed my way past Alexander and Wade, marched up the cellar steps into the open air, and headed directly for the boathouse.
* * *
I must have spent several hours imprisoned in the cellar of the bakehouse, for dusk was already falling as I passed by Geffery Crewe’s window, from where Bressy had made his escape a few days earlier. The general impression of gloom was not helped by the fact that great billows of black cloud had gathered in the south-west, and a keen wind had begun to whip across the front of the house, whistling through the trees and bushes in the walled garden.
The boathouse was completely deserted when I reached it. It took a few moments for my eyes to get used to the dark, although an eerie light reflecting off the lake revealed several rowing boats bobbing on the water. Somewhere in the building, a door clapped intermittently in the wind.
I untied the furthest of the boats, jumped in, and fixed the oars into place. It was a little awkward manoeuvring the boat in the dark, but with a little effort I managed to push out into the lake and started to make a beeline for Cotton’s summerhouse, its pink and white walls standing out against the dark backdrop of the trees.
The water was surprisingly choppy, and I kept missing my stroke, gusts of wind blowing cascades of water and spray into the side of my face. Within a couple of minutes I was drenched from head to foot, and I recalled Gorste’s warning about the unpredictability of the weather on the lake. He had not been wrong. It was almost as though I were rowing in open sea.
About halfway across the lake, I glanced over my left shoulder and realised the summerhouse was no longer there – the wind was blowing me off course, and the island was now over my right shoulder. I lifted my left oar into the air and paddled furiously with my right, but in doing so I realised I was starting to fill the boat with water. I cursed and tried to moderate my stroke, but the wind was now blowing waves over the side of the boat, and the interior was filling up very quickly.
I looked over my shoulder and started to panic. The island was still a good fifty yards away, and I had nothing to bail out the rapidly filling craft with. I realised with a jolt of panic that I was going to sink, so I struck out towards land as fast as I could, trying to get as close as possible to the shore, but then the wind strengthened momentarily, and a large wave filled the boat. Like a fool, I over-compensated by moving my body too far to the left, and within seconds the boat was under water, leaving me clinging to one of the oars for safety. My hat flew off my head, sent spinning like a top across the surface of the water.
I started to paddle for the shore, gripping onto the oar for buoyancy, but then to my relief I felt the bottom of the lake beneath my feet. I was still twenty yards from the island, but by chance I had found an underwater spur. I pushed towards the land, the oar stretched out in front of me, and a few seconds later I collapsed, exhausted, onto the grass, which stretched right down to the island’s shore.
I lay motionless for a few minutes, trying to get my breath back, and surveyed my surroundings. The island, perhaps seventy yards in diameter, was totally covered in trees, save for a small clearing on the island’s high point, on which Cotton’s summerhouse stood. Ten yards to my right was a small jetty, to which a little boat was tied. My heart jumped. That meant that somebody must actually still be on the island. I glanced upwards at the summerhouse and noticed with trepidation that a candle was flickering dimly through the arched windows.
I pulled myself to my feet and started to walk up the hill towards the wooden construction, my feet slipping on the damp undergrowth. The building, I realised, was made of clapboard painted pink, but carried a pointed slate roof with a gold-coloured weather vane at its apex.
After a few yards struggling through the undergrowth, I found a set of steps leading from the jetty, so I approached the building from the front. I tried the door, which opened.
Looking tentatively inside, I noticed that the room was furnished with a simple table, several chairs, and a large cabinet filled with fine porcelain and glasses, as well as more modest trenchers, mugs, and other eating implements. A barrel of wine sat propped up on a wooden frame in one corner of the room. The candle I had seen from outside stood on one of the window sills, its flame flickering in the wind.
My eyes scanned the floor, and I noticed that a roughly woven carpet had been pulled to one side to reveal a trapdoor, which had been set into the wooden floor. The trapdoor was firmly closed, but the fact that the carpet had not been replaced suggested the person present was either underneath me or had been forced to shut the trapdoor in a hurry. I smiled to myself. This must be the entrance to Cotton’s secret room. I looked around the walls of the summerhouse to see if I could locate a key.
At that moment, however, I heard a faint sound coming from outside the building. I looked over my shoulder to see what it was, but I was too late. I saw a grey shadow fly across my peripheral vision and then felt a blinding pain in the side of my head. I shouted out as my hand flew to my temple, and I turned around, but all I was able to see before my world went black was a pair of piercing blue eyes staring at me through the gloom.
Chapter 28
Combermere – Friday, August 16th 1644
Marc Folineux was not in the best of moods. He was used to being obstructed in his line of work, but Thomas Cotton and his household had gone too far. He would see that Cotton paid for his lack of respect where it hurt him most – in his pocket.
The sequestrator had arrived at Combermere just as dusk was falling, deliberately so, for he had figured that a late arrival would make it more difficult for the master of the house to feign absence, but from the moment he and his assistant had announced their presence at the farm manager’s lodge, he had been met not only with obstruction and resistance, but downright avoidance.
&n
bsp; He had been received at the lodge by one of the gamekeepers, who had looked at him oddly when he had asked to speak to Gorste.
“Mr Gorste is indisposed, sir,” the gamekeeper had replied, in a tone that suggested something was being left unsaid.
“Then let me speak to your chief steward, he should be expecting me.”
“I am sorry, sir. Mr Frayne is currently also unavailable,” the gamekeeper had insisted. “We have a minor crisis to deal with at the moment. If you would both care to wait here, I will see if I can get someone to see you.”
The two sequestrators had then been left on their own in the farm manager’s office, whilst the gamekeeper walked off, muttering, in the direction of the main house.
Twenty minutes passed by, during which time it got steadily darker, and the weather outside became stormier. A vicious wind had whipped up, rattling the glass in the window frames, whilst rain spattered against the panes. There was no sign of the gamekeeper, though, so Folineux got to his feet, brushed down his cloak, and announced to his colleague that he was going to find someone with better manners. Instructing his assistant to stay where he was, he marched out into the rain and made his way along the main pathway, between the rows of apple trees, towards the house.
A little way along the track he came upon a washhouse, next to which stood a wooden water tank and white picket fence. Standing by the fence and looking out across the lake was a woman in her thirties, who looked oddly familiar, talking to a slim, bearded man with dark hair. Folineux called out to them, but when they saw him, the two people appeared to take fright and scuttled off down a side path into the orchard.
“Ignorant snobs,” he muttered to himself. “Another reason why people such as this should be sequestered.”
But then he looked over towards the lake to see what had caught the two people’s attention, and his eyes focused on a light bobbing its way across the water. As it grew closer, he saw that it was a man in a rowing boat, his face illuminated by a single lantern.
With a rush of adrenalin, he realised that he was looking at the very man he wanted to see – the deputy steward, Abraham Gorste – although what he was doing rowing a boat across the lake in the middle of a storm, God only knew.
An instinct told him that he should not call out to Gorste, that his interests would be better served by waiting and watching what the man was up to.
With an agility that belied his years, Folineux quickly vaulted the picket fence and then crept silently through the trees by the water’s edge until he found a suitable vantage point. There he stopped, wiped the rain water from the brim of his hat, and waited.
Chapter 29
Combermere – Friday, August 16th 1644
I had no idea where I was when I woke up. Gorste had tied my hands round my back and bound my ankles together, but I was able to shuffle myself into an upright position so that I could survey my surroundings.
It was very dark, but when I looked up I was able to make out a circle of sky above my head. I appeared to be in some kind of circular, wooden container. There were pipes on the wall next to my left elbow and some kind of valve mechanism controlling what looked like an inlet sluice. Opposite to where I was sitting, I could just make out a ladder rising up the wall of the container. I realised with a start that I must be sitting inside the water tank next to the washhouse. In my unconscious state, Gorste must have rowed me back across the lake – but why, and where was he now?
I did not have time to consider this question, for suddenly I felt a movement and a muffled groan a few feet away from me, and realised I was not alone in the water tank. I strained my eyes and made out a small figure huddled against the foot of the ladder.
“Amy?”
There were some more muffled squeals, and the figure tried to wriggle towards me, but was only able to move a foot or two. I shuffled across the tank towards her and saw that Amy’s wrists had been fastened with chains to the bottom rung of the ladder. She could not speak either, for her mouth had been gagged with a piece of cloth – a kerchief or some such item – and she had also been blindfolded.
“Stay still a moment,” I whispered. “I will try and remove the cloth from your mouth.”
I felt Amy relax her body, and I bent over her, trying to loosen the gag with my teeth. It took a bit of shaking, but eventually the cloth loosened just enough for Amy to be able to spit it out onto the floor of the tank. I then pulled the blindfold down over her nose with my teeth so she could see.
“Master Cheswis,” she said, coughing and spluttering a little, “I thought you would never come. Where are we?”
“This is a water tank,” I said. “It’s used to pump water into a washhouse nearby. I will explain everything to you later, but right now we need to find a way out of here. My hands are tied behind my back with leather. If I shuffle up alongside you, do you think you might be able to untie me?”
“I don’t know. I will try.”
I pushed myself round so that my back was up against the ladder, and I felt Amy fumbling with the straps around my wrist. Unfortunately, though, the chains that had bound her wrists to the ladder were such that she could not grasp the leather behind my back with both hands at the same time.
“I can’t do it, Master Cheswis,” she cried. “I can’t grip the knot.”
At that moment, however, all thoughts of freeing myself became superfluous because a door opened in the side of the tank, and a beam of light flashed in my face.
“You are a persistent fellow,” said Gorste. “Come, you can sit outside. I would like to talk to you.”
Gorste hauled me to my feet and pushed me in the direction of the door to the tank. I hopped through the entrance, but then lost my balance and went sprawling onto the grass by the white picket fence. Gorste calmly closed the door, leaving Amy alone inside the tank, and walked over to me. Grabbing me by the collar, he propped me up against the outside of the tank so that I was comfortable.
“I must say, I am intrigued,” he said. “How did you know it was me?”
“It is amazing what historical documents can reveal when you read between the lines,” I said, breathlessly.
I began to explain to Gorste about the archives held in the Booth Hall, and in particular the set of witness statements showed to me by Ezekiel Green. “I realised some time ago that the key to solving this crime was understanding exactly what went on in Nantwich in fifteen seventy-two, when Roger Crockett was murdered.
“Two things occurred to me. Firstly, the most likely way that Crockett’s engraving ended up in the hands of Edmund Crewe was that it was taken from Crockett at some time between Crewe’s attack on him and Crockett being returned to The Crown. Secondly, it was clear that this needed to have occurred somewhere out of public view, and where Crockett was in the presence of at least one of the other trustees. The only obvious location which falls into this category is the house where Crockett was taken by Richard Wilbraham immediately after the attack. I realised that there was a fair chance that the owner of this house was also one of the trustees and was most probably known as such by Wilbraham.
“This was confirmed by the fact that you have clearly known what Roger Wilbraham’s word was from the start. Your ancestor will have found this out from the Wilbrahams in some way.”
“Most perceptive,” said Gorste. “My great-grandfather was a steward at Townsend House. There was a pact among those trustees who knew each other’s identities not to reveal the key words to each other, but my great-grandfather knew where Wilbraham kept his engraving, so he gained access to his room one day, found the engraving, and memorised the key word.”
“Yes, that is more or less what I thought. So all I needed to know was the name of the owner of the house on Little Wood Street. Once I found that in the archives, everything fell into place. The murderer, for example, seemingly knew where Edmund Crewe was. This pointed to someone who knew Combermere well. After all, Crewe disappeared off the face of the earth shortly after Roger Crockett’s death, an
d his descendent, Geffery, did not show up at Combermere until relatively recently, so it is only since Crewe’s employment as a farrier that it has been possible to gather all six words. Presumably it was Crewe’s sudden appearance that prompted you to believe that you could resurrect the search for the treasure and gather all six words.”
“Of course.”
“But what I don’t understand is the sudden urgency and the need to kill Henry Hassall.”
Gorste shuffled uncomfortably and put his lantern on the ground. “That was unfortunate,” he said. “I overheard Mr Thomas Cotton speaking one day to two new guests at the house. One was Mistress Furnival, whom you know, and the other was a man named Bressy. They were talking about treasure hidden by Abbot Massey, which they wanted to retrieve for the King. I realised that Bressy must be the seventh trustee, the one who knew the name of all the other six. Once I knew that, I realised I would have to act.”
“And Hassall?”
“He recognised me. Hassall has been a visitor to Combermere before, but the plan was not to kill him at first.”
“But everything went wrong when you realised Bressy had been there first.”
“Exactly. When I turned up at Hassall’s wich house, he was in a terrible state – half drowned he was. Told me that some madman had dunked his head in the ship repeatedly until he told him the word on his engraving.”
“But Hassall didn’t know you were also a trustee,” I pointed out.
“No, but I told him that I was one, that I knew who Bressy was, and that the only way he could prevent him from stealing the treasure was if we shared each other’s words and marched over to Ridley Field together. He fell for it. We took a couple of spades and walked up through the sconce at Welsh Row End and back across the fields, telling each other our respective words on the way. He wasn’t really fit for the task, to be honest, and he threw up all down his shirt on the way. Nevertheless, when we got to the pillar we dug a few holes around it in the vain hope of finding the treasure ourselves, but of course we got nowhere. It then occurred to me that if I killed Hassall, it would most likely be blamed on Bressy, and I would be able to pursue the treasure on my own.
The Combermere Legacy Page 24